


Numeracy

by jeeno2



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-11 12:48:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5627191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeeno2/pseuds/jeeno2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's 1940.  Rose Tyler joins the British war effort as a chance for a fresh new start.  Her first assignment has her working under John Smith, a former math professor who deciphers encrypted German messages for the British Army.  What he teaches her will change everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This idea just wouldn't leave me alone. I hope you enjoy. :) Mature rating is for later chapters.

_October 17, 1940_

* * *

 

Rose Tyler wipes the back of her hand across her forehead and adjusts the strap of her heavy travel bag, feeling a little like she’s in a daydream.  

After five months – or more accurately, after twenty-three years – spent waiting for this day to arrive she’s finally on the train that will take her to London.  And on to the next phase of her life.

She hardly has a chance to look around and contemplate the car she’ll be riding these next four hours before the station attendant appears, a kindly smile on his face.

“Ticket, please?” He’s elderly, with a gentle air about him that reminds Rose a little of her grandad.  But the fleeting remembrances the man conjures don’t do much to settle the anticipation that kept her up half the night and which is currently roiling in the pit of her stomach.

“Erm.  Yes.  My ticket.” Rose rummages around in her pocket for a few moments until her fingers close around it, the little square of paper that will change everything.  “Here it is.”

“Thank you, miss,” he says, taking it from her.  “Right this way.”  He smiles at her again and takes her arm, showing her to a seat halfway to the back of the train.

Rose regards the seat warily.  It doesn’t look very comfortable.  She glances up and realizes none of the seats do.  She should have expected it, really.  There’s a war on.  This train was likely designed for efficiency and speed, not passengers’ comfort.  

Still.  This ticket was the best passage she could afford when she made the mad decision to do this.  And it’s not so bad, this train.  Not really. In either case she knows she’ll likely be enduring far worse depravations once she actually gets to London.  

Biting her bottom lip, she decides to just make the best of what she suspects will be a rather bumpy afternoon.

She tucks her skirt underneath her legs and takes her seat, trying to smile at the kindly station attendant.   He smiles back at her and pats her gently on the shoulder before shuffling on down the line.  He takes tickets from another elderly man two rows ahead of her; from a young family with three children, all dressed in their Sunday best, clearly on holiday; and on and on until he gets to the front of the train and disappears behind the conductor’s door.  

Rose drops her bag on the floor by her feet and sighs.  It was much heavier than she thought it would be when she packed it last night.  It’s stuffed to the brim with most of the things she thinks she’ll need upon settling into her new flat and her new life: clothes (just the essentials; the Army will issue her a uniform); a few framed photographs; and other odds and ends she thought she might miss if she left them behind.

After the hour-long walk to the station she’s glad to finally set the bag down and sit for a while.  She leans back as much as the rickety bench will allow and closes her eyes.

The train lurches to life a few minutes later with a giant bellowing whistle from the engine.  Her eyes pop open and she looks out the window, watching as autumn-dappled trees float by.

It hadn’t been a difficult decision to join the war effort.  Not really.  With her father dead and gone, her mum working like mad to make ends meet, and most of her friends off and married with new little families of their own, there wasn’t much of anything keeping her tied to Leeds anymore.  

And so when Rose saw that advert in the paper looking for girls who could type and were good with numbers to come join the war effort she jumped at the opportunity for a new start.

Mum had been furious, of course.  Every night for weeks she’d gone on about how a young unmarried girl had no business up and leaving home like this.  

“Your priority should be on finding a proper husband, Rose,” she’d told her, over and over again, a broken record in curlers and sensible shoes.  “A husband who can take care of you so you won’t  _have_  to work in some dodgy office taking dictation and getting coffee the rest of your life.”

But Mickey Smith down at the Powell garage is the only man Rose’s ever been remotely interested in as more than just a friend.  Even the prospect of a life with him wasn’t enough, in the end, to make her stay.

* * *

 

After the tea service comes, Rose rifles through the papers she’d stuffed into her bag last night, just for something to do with her anxious hands.

She pulls out the letter she got from the Army office a fortnight ago detailing what’s to be her first assignment.   She’d carefully stuffed it between framed photographs of her mom and her best mate, Shareen, when she’d packed last night.  The paper is folded in three places and already quite worn from frequent re-reading, even though she only just received it.

She’s read it so many times she’s quite nearly committed it to memory.  She unfolds it anyway and begins to read it again.  A quick glance at the clock hung over the conductor’s compartment shows there’s still at least another two hours before the train is due to arrive at Kings’ Cross, and she’s too full of nervous energy to just sit and stare out the window.  

The letter was written, and signed with a flourish and bright blue ink, by a Captain John Smith. According to Donna Noble – the girl who’s to be her new flatmate in London – Captain Smith was a tenured, highly respected maths professor at Cambridge who left teaching a year ago to join the Army.  His job is to help the Allied forces crack coded messages intercepted from German spies.  Her job will be to assist him, and the other men in the office, as he does it.

Captain Smith’s letter is very friendly, and describes the work Rose will be doing for him and the other military men who work in encryption in fairly vague terms.  Written by anyone else, Rose suspects the letter – and the work she suspects she'll soon be doing; taking dictation, doing simple maths – would read dryer than dust.  But Captain Smith’s enthusiasm for the project practically leaps off the page.  Just reading his words for what might be the hundredth time has her smiling.  

Tucking the letter back into her travel bag, Rose’s smile grows.  She hopes the work itself proves half as interesting as Captain Smith makes it sound.  If nothing else she knows the next year will be an adventure unlike any she’s ever known.


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who responded so positively to this story’s prologue! I hope you enjoy. :)

Five o’clock in the morning – and the accompanying shrill ringing that comes from the alarm clock on Rose’s bedside table – arrive far too early.

Groaning a little, Rose rolls over and reaches out blindly with her right hand.  When her fingers brush up against the alarm she slams her hand down on top of it to shut it off.  It falls to the floor with a clatter. 

Resigned, Rose opens her eyes and blinks up at the ceiling.  The small room would be pitch black but for the weak light streaming in from the hallway through the crack under the door.  The earliest rays of sunlight won’t be creeping up the horizon for hours yet. 

Rose knew when she answered that ad that this new life wouldn’t exactly be glamourous.  Somehow, though, it hadn’t occurred to her how wretched these early morning wake-ups would feel.

Stretching her arms up over her head to try and rouse herself fully, Rose glances towards the narrow bed along the opposite wall.  It’s already empty.  But then Donna, who just yesterday claimed to hate early mornings just as much as Rose does, has been here three months already.  She must be growing accustomed to the erratic schedules they’re expected to keep.

Rose climbs out of bed, bracing herself against the room’s chill.  She walks towards the closet she and Donna share and considers the seven blue uniforms hanging neatly in a row.  They’re distinguishable from one another only at the bust (Rose’s are a touch narrower there) and at the hemline (Donna’s are longer).  She pulls the one on the far end from its hanger and tosses it on her bed, quickly donning her brassiere, knickers, stockings, and garters as gooseflesh from the chilly air rises on her arms.

Once dressed, Rose flicks on the electric bedtable lamp and peers at her reflection in the tiny mirror hanging over the desk.  She hasn’t worn any sort of uniform since leaving school seven years ago.  If she didn’t know that it was her own face staring back at her in the mirror she wouldn’t recognize herself.    

She takes a closer look at her hair, frowning.  It lies flat and limp against her head from the six fitful hours she spent with it pressed up between her face and the pillow.  She bites her lip, wishing she’d thought to bring along her good set of curlers.  Then again, her hair will be up and under a cap all day, so it probably doesn’t much matter.

As she’s beginning to pin up her hair the door to the room bursts open.

“Oi, sleepyhead.”  Donna’s a friendly, if rather abrupt woman.  Her voice, even in greeting, carries a slight edge.  It cuts through the quiet of the room like a knife.  Donna goes to the desk straightaway and rummages through its top drawer for the room key.    

“Morning, Donna.”  Rose smiles at her.

“Morning,” Donna says, shutting the desk drawer with a slam.  She smiles back.  “Mrs. Williams’ breakfast is nearly gone.  We better hurry if we want some.”

Mrs. Rory Williams – their ginger, somewhat eccentric landlady – puts on breakfast for everyone in the boarding house each morning.  _My girls_ , she calls them jovially.  Mrs. Williams’ husband is a physician and often gone at odd hours, Donna explained yesterday, and they never had children of their own.  Rose supposes cooking and cleaning for the seven young women who board here gives the older woman something to fill her days.

“What’s for breakfast?”  Rose asks, stomach growling.  She fidgets with a bobby pin threatening to come loose under her cap as she follows Donna out the door.  They take the stairs down to the dining room two at a time, the aroma of Mrs. Williams’ delicious breakfast wafting up to them and growing stronger with every step.

“Same thing as always,” Donna says.  “Eggs.  Tea.  A bit of coffee of course.  Roasted tomatoes.  Oh - and buttered toast.” 

Rose grins.  “Smells wonderful.” 

When they arrive in Mrs. Williams’ ornately appointed dining room Rose takes a plate from the top of the stack and serves herself a hot steaming scoop of scrambled eggs and two slices of buttered toast.  From the way the other girls are digging into their meals Rose suspects everything tastes even better than it smells.

She only hopes the excitement and nerves that have been roiling in the pit of her stomach ever since leaving Leeds will allow her to eat.

This is the first time in her life Rose has ever tried to make something of herself.  To do something with her life that wasn’t working at a menial job in some shop downtown. 

As happy as she is to be here, she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t also terrified. 

Rose knows she’ll do her best.  She promised herself she would when she accepted the offer and she promised herself again on the train yesterday.  But what if she mucks it up regardless?  It’s important work she’s been hired to do.  She knows that much.

The voice of her old literature teacher from school – the one who told her she’d never amount to anything with mediocre grades like hers -- is all she can hear, suddenly, ringing through her head, as Donna takes a seat next to her at the table. 

Despite the fact that Rose is indeed quite hungry, by the time they need to leave to catch their bus Rose has only managed a single swallow of coffee and a few bites of toast.  She can feel it all churning away uncomfortably in her belly, eating up her insides like acid.

“That’s all you’re having?” Donna asks her, eyebrows raised, as she gets up to leave the table.

“’m not terribly hungry,” Rose lies.

Donna shrugs.  “Suit yourself.”

At the front door, Rose pulls on her warm winter coat, her gloves, and the black rubber boots her mum made her promise she’d wear on chilly mornings.

“Ready?”  Donna asks, pulling on her own coat.

Rose nods.  And together, the two women walk through Mrs. Williams’ front door to catch their bus.

* * *

 

They’re not permitted to discuss their work outside the office.

It’s the very first thing Donna tells her when the bus comes.

“They only have us rooming together because it would look a bit queer otherwise,” she explains in a hushed whisper.  Donna’s voice normally carries quite well.  Yesterday, at the train station, Rose could hear her shouting her name from clear across the terminal.  But this morning, on the bus, Donna keeps her voice so low Rose has to crane her neck to be sure she catches her words. 

“Queer how, exactly?” Rose asks.

“Unmarried girls moving to London from all over Britain, living on their own and heading to the same building every morning?  No.”  Donna shakes her head.  “That would raise questions the crown’d rather not answer.  But either way, we still aren’t allowed to speak to each other about what we do.  Not even when the lights are out and we’re alone in our room.”

Rose nods, biting her lip.  Understanding.  Or at least trying to understand, given that all she really knows about her new position is that it’s in London, it has to do with intercepted German messages and the war – and, perhaps most importantly for her, it’s an escape from the stifling boredom of her life back home. 

“That’s why your letter from Captain Smith was hand-delivered by a military man.  The government don’t trust the postal carriers not to snoop.”  Donna peers at her.  “Wish I could tell you more about the day-to-day of it all.  I remember how confusing it was, at first.  The work we do.”

Rose nods, her heartbeat quickening at Donna’s words.  All this secrecy makes all of this seem far more exciting than Rose suspects it would have been otherwise.

She doesn’t say any of that to Donna.  “I understand,” she says instead.

“Anyway, Smith will fill you in on everything not covered in your letter this afternoon.”

“This afternoon?”  Rose assumed she’d be meeting her new boss straight away.

“He’s got important matters to deal with elsewhere this morning,” Donna explains.  “He’ll come round to fetch you after lunch.  In the meantime, I’ll introduce you to everyone.  Help you set up your desk.  That sort of thing.”

Donna abruptly turns to look out the window, clearly indicating that the conversation is over.    Rose begins to contemplate her fingernails and trying, to no effect, to calm her nerves.

When Donna speaks again a long moment later it’s to change the subject completely.

“So.  Leeds, eh?”  Donna asks.  Rose has known her flatmate for less than twenty-four hours.  But already she can see that for all her rough edges, Donna Noble has an uncanny, natural ability to put people at ease.  To make engaging, lively small talk with them no matter how awkward the situation.  To make them laugh.  Rose wonders if Donna knows just how nervous she is.  “I’ve never been outside London.  What’s it like up there?”

Rose considers her answer.  “Well… there’s not much to tell, really.” 

Donna _tsks_ and shakes her head.  “I’ve always thought it sounded rather boring, to be honest.  Can’t be half as interesting as London.” 

Rose laughs, thinking of all the interesting people she’s seen, all the fascinating shops and vibrant colors she’s driven past just in the short time she’s been here.  “Yeah.  Suppose you could say that.  It’s all rather…. I dunno.  Grey and humdrum, I guess, compared to here.” She swallows, picturing her hometown in her mind’s eye.  The factories that made up the fabric of her childhood.  The drab little houses and neighborhoods surrounding them on all sides.  Fencing her in.  Stifling her.

“Are you lot dealing with air raids up there too?”

Rose blanches a little.   Leeds might be a wholly unremarkable place, but she suspects that has a great deal to do with why it’s not yet had to deal with any of the terrifying nighttime attacks London faces on a regular basis.  To be sure – the local governments and municipalities up north have set up underground shelters and sirens, just like cities all over the country have done, just to be on the safe side.  But so far none of it has been put to use.  The sirens and makeshift watchtowers gather dust in the center of town like silent sentinels, serving only as a reminder that there’s a war on and providing roosting opportunities for birds.   

“Um.  No.  No air raids.  Not yet, anyway.”  Suddenly, Rose imagines her mother, all alone in their little flat, having to cower in some neighbor’s basement as sirens go off and German bombs drop on the only home she’s ever known.  A pang of guilt washes over her, and not for the first time, for leaving her behind.

Donna nods.  “I’m glad to hear that.  Although, they’re not so bad, really, the air raids.” She shrugs.  “So far it’s mostly just been a bunch of loud sirens going off, waking us all up and scaring the pants off us.  And then we head underground for a bit until we get the all clear.”  She looks out the window.  “It’s all a bit boring, really.  Unless there’s a handsome bloke to snuggle with in your shelter, of course.”

She waggles her eyebrows at Rose, making her laugh.

Donna goes quiet, then, and turns her gaze downward for a long moment.  Left alone in thought, Rose can’t help but wonder if Donna may be more unsettled by the attacks in London than she wants to let on.

* * *

 

They don’t get to their bus stop until a quarter past six in the morning.  The other passengers make room for them as they gather their belongings and make their way around legs and leather briefcases towards the exit.

Donna adjusts the strap of her shoulder bag as the bus drives away in a cloud of ashy gray exhaust.  “Let’s get to walking, then, shall we?”

One thing Donna _was_ able to tell Rose is that their workplace is roughly a half-mile from the bus stop.  It’s quite out of the way, their building, and not near any well-travelled bus routes. 

As irritating as this will make her daily commute, Rose suspects her new employers selected this location precisely because it’s so far off the beaten tracks.  But of course she can’t ask Donna this and expect any sort of meaningful reply.

The earliest rays of sunlight are beginning to creep over the horizon by the time Rose and Donna finally get to their destination.

“Here we are,” Donna says with mock pride in her voice and a theatrical flourish.  “Home sweet home.”

With how long Rose has been anticipating this moment she’s surprised at how utterly unremarkable the building is.  It’s squat and windowless, obviously designed for functionality rather than aesthetics.  In a city full of tall, imposing structures this one’s only a single story.  (Single-story buildings fare better if there’s a bombing, Donna explains in a hushed whisper.)  It looks to be made almost entirely out of concrete and cinder blocks, all very modern materials that further set it apart from most London tony old architecture, and something that reminds Rose irresistibly of home.

A young man in a military uniform opens what appears to be the front door for them at their approach.

“Morning, Donna,” he says, smiling at her.  His teeth are perfectly straight and whiter than Rose thought teeth could be.  He looks at Rose, then, and pauses.  “And you might be…?” He shuffles through the file he’s holding, brow furrowed.

“Oh.  I’m Rose,” she says.  She reaches up reflexively to tuck her hair behind her ear – an old, nervous habit she’s had since childhood – before remembering her hair’s all tucked up underneath her cap.  “Rose Tyler.”

“She’s new,” Donna explains.

“Ah, yes.”  The man nods and gives Rose a small smile.  “Rose Tyler.  You’re on the list right here.”  He taps the paper – presumably on the spot where her name is listed – before closing up the file again.  “I’m Ianto Jones.  I’m assigned to a different… ahh, department, you could call it, than you are.  But we’ll be seeing lots of each other all the same.”

He ushers them inside and closes the front door behind them.  He fumbles in his front pocket a moment for a key, which he inserts into the door’s lock.  He turns it sharply to the right, and Rose can hear the tumbler inside it fall into place with a loud _click_.

She swallows, her anxiety having increased tenfold.  She knew there’d be high levels of security here – but did Ianto actually just lock them in?

He glances down at his wristwatch, not answering Rose’s unspoken question.  “Oh dear.  I’m late for my morning briefing with Captain Harkness.  Donna, can you show Rose to her office?”

“Of course,” Donna says.  “Planned on it.”

“Excellent.  I’ll see you both later.”

Without another word, Ianto Jones turns on his heels and walks swiftly down the corridor. 

Donna looks at Rose and smiles, linking her arm through hers.

“Off we go, then.”

Rose walks alongside Donna down the long hallway, the heels of their shoes clacking loudly against the white tiled floor.  The corridor is lit up from above by artificial lighting that’s so searingly bright Rose has to squint for a long moment just to adjust to it.  Glass windows flank them on both sides, but they’re walking too quickly for Rose to peer into any of them and see what might be on the other side.

Once they’ve walked about one hundred feet Donna stops them in front of the biggest window they’ve passed so far.

“Right then,” Donna says.  “This is us.”

Rose screws up her courage, takes a deep breath, and looks into the window. 

It’s a military-style office, not too different from the sorts of things she’s seen in movies about fictional wars, with tactical maps of Europe plastering most of the walls and a shining black telephone on every desk.  There are people inside – some women, but mostly men; some dressed in plainclothes, others in military uniform – scuttling to and fro, in and out of the room, so quickly that Rose can’t help but think they must be in a terrible rush to get to wherever it is they’re going.  She cannot hear their voices through the thick pane of glass but their posture and the tilt of their heads make her think they’re speaking to one another in very hushed tones indeed.

“Oh look,” Donna says, her eyes fixed on something Rose cannot see.  She sounds surprised.  “He’s already here.”

“Who’s already here?” Rose asks.

Instead of answering her Donna pulls out a key from the front pocket of her uniform and turns it in the lock of the door.

“You’ll see,” she says, smirking a little.  She pulls the door open and motions for Rose to follow her inside.

* * *

 

After Donna introduces her to many of her new coworkers, Rose is shown to Captain John Smith’s private office by an older woman whose name she doesn’t quite catch.  As befits his high-ranking position within this department, Smith’s office is located at the very back of the large shared space, behind all those maps of Europe and the small shared kitchenette where the other girls take their coffee breaks.

The door to his office is slightly ajar when they get there.  She wonders if everyone else in the office can hear how loudly her heart is pounding in her chest.

“Captain Smith is expecting you, dear, so no need to knock.”  The woman – Helen?  Heloise?  -- gives Rose a little wink.  “Just go on in.  And good luck.”

And with that, Rose is on her own for the first time since Donna picked her up at the train station.  She straightens her skirt a bit, stands a little straighter, and takes several deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself down.   


“Here goes nothing,” she murmurs.  Ignoring the advice she was just given she raps a little on the frame of the door before entering.  She would die of embarrassment if she caught her new boss indisposed somehow.

She sees right away that Captain Smith is there, just as she was told he’d be.  But he doesn’t turn to greet her.  In fact, if he heard her knock or notices she’s there he shows no outward sign of it.  He’s rapidly pacing his office, running his hands distractedly through wild, unkempt brown hair that sticks up and out in all directions, and muttering things to himself under his breath that Rose cannot make out.

At the sight of him Rose’s mouth drops open in shock in spite of herself.  To say this man is nothing like what she’d expected he’d be would be the understatement of the decade.

For one thing, she thought he’d be older.  Much older.  She knew he’d been a maths professor at Cambridge before coming here.  An accomplished maths professor, in fact, if even half of Donna’s stories about him are true.  Rose left school at sixteen but in all the books she’s read and every motion picture she’s ever seen, university professors are doddering old men with poor eyesight and errant hairs sprouting from their ears. 

 _This_ professor, though.  Well.  She can’t be certain, but he doesn’t look to be more than thirty-five years old.  And while Rose has never been one to ogle men (or at least, not one to ogle men very _much_ ), she would have to be dead not to notice how fit he is.  As he continues to pace she takes in his broad shoulders, his slender waist, and, God forgive her, his bum – all of which she just can’t help but notice given how snugly his skinny brown pinstriped suit fits him.

After a very long moment Rose realizes that she’s blatantly staring at the man who is now her boss.  She blushes and averts her eyes. Fortunately, he still doesn’t seem to have noticed she’s there.  He’s still muttering things under his breath, occasionally turning his back to her altogether to scribble something incomprehensible on the chalkboard behind him. 

At length she clears her throat, loudly, hoping it will get his attention.

“ _Ahem_.”

It works.

“Oh!” he exclaims.  He stops pacing and jumps, as though he’s just heard surprising news or received a mild electric shock.  He quickly pivots on one foot, blinking at her several times when he finally realizes she’s there.

And then he breaks into a grin so dazzling it nearly takes her breath away.

He shakes his head a little, as though trying to clear his head.   “You must be Ms. Tyler,” he says, his smile broader than ever.

“That’s me,” Rose says.  Once again she nervously reaches up to tuck a lock of hair that isn’t there behind her ear.   

“Welcome, Ms. Tyler.  And please!  Do sit down.”  He motions for her to sit in a hard-backed chair opposite the leather-bound one that must be his. 

She does as she’s bid, neatly tucking her skirt underneath her as she does so, crossing her legs at the ankles like her mum always taught her to do in polite company.

She hopes he doesn’t notice just how flushed her cheeks must be or how badly her hands are trembling.

“Thank you, sir,” she says. 

“Oh, bah.”  He waves his hand in the air dismissively.  “No need to call me _sir_. I’m John.  Calling me John will do just fine.”

“John?”  Rose bites her bottom lip, uncertain.  She’s never called a boss by his first name before, and she’s certainly never had a boss as accomplished or impressive as this one.

“Yep,” he says, popping the ‘p’.  “John.  Although I suppose if you _insist_ on calling me something other than John you could call me Professor Smith.  Or even ‘the Doctor,’ which is a nickname of mine I’m quite fond of.”  He laughs a little, and crosses over to sit on the edge of the cluttered desk up against the far wall of his office.  Paperwork is stacked haphazardly all over its surface, but right next to where he’s sitting there’s a small, framed photograph.  Rose can’t see it well from this distance but it seems to depict a young dark-haired young woman, smiling knowingly at the camera, a little blonde-haired girl perched on her knee.  

She looks up at him again.  “I’m not to call you Captain either, then?”

He pulls a face and shakes his head.  “Definitely not _Captain_.  Not much of a military man, me.  I mean, technically, yes:  I am a Captain in the British Army.  But the title’s really just a bit of subterfuge.”  He smiles at her again, wrinkles fanning out from the corners of his warm brown eyes.  “The government gave me the rank just so people outside this building don’t cotton on to what I’m really doing here.”

That would probably explain the pinstriped suit instead of the military uniform, Rose muses.

He rubs his hands together and smiles again.  “So.  You must be wondering what you’ll be doing here.”

Without another word, Professor Smith – the Doctor – picks up a thick stack of telegrams from the top of his desk and hands them over to her.   Glancing down at them, Rose sees the top page is covered in indecipherable gibberish.  She flips through the pages, one after the other, finding nothing but cryptic nonsense on every single one.

“Oh, Rose Tyler,” he says after she’s finished her brief review.  She looks up from the telegrams and sees him staring at her, his eyes sparkling with excitement.  It’s mesmerizing, the look on his face, and so intense she finds she has to look away.

“Yes?” she asks, eyes back on the stack of papers in her hands.

He laughs, then – a great, big, carefree laugh that sounds like rushing water.  Like wind through the trees.

“We’re going to have such adventures together, you and me.”  She chances another glance up at him.  He winks at her.  “Just you wait.”


	3. Chapter 2

As it happens, Rose had no reason to be anxious about her first day on the job.

She doesn’t know if she’s _actually_ a natural at the work, as Captain Smith insists she is, or if her success is simply due to his being an excellent teacher. Either way, Rose has a solid grasp of her new responsibilities before lunchtime on her first day. 

By the end of her first week her work is nearly error-free.

“This is brilliant!” Captain Smith – or, the Doctor, as he repeatedly insists she call him – exclaims when she checks in before leaving for the weekend.  She’s just handed him the stack of encrypted telegrams that Claire, his secretary, gave her before lunch.  The telegrams are no longer in the jumbled disarray they were in when Rose got them.  That’s because she spent the entire afternoon sorting them into the order necessary for proper decoding.

“Thank you, Doctor,” she says, giving him a small smile.  

The Doctor carefully sets the telegrams down on his desk and shakes his head.  “I swear, Miss Tyler – you’re the quickest study I’ve worked with in years.”

He grins broadly and winks at her, then – just as he does whenever he praises her.  He’s wearing such a cheeky expression she can’t help but wonder, for the hundredth time, if he says things like that to all the girls.

But even if he does, she’s never been praised for her work like this before.  She’s not used to it.  It makes her blush like a schoolgirl every time.

“I don’t think it’s got much to do with me, Doctor,” she demurs, nodding meaningfully at the papers on his desk.  “It’s you.  You’re an excellent teacher.”  It’s the truth.  The Doctor’s excitement for his work is a palpable thing, something so big and so obvious it’s practically a separate physical presence in the room, hovering next to them as they work.  His passion for what he does helps him explain the complicated steps involved, patiently and carefully, until Rose has every last detail of it down cold.

And his enthusiasm is captivating.  Rose has never seen anything like it – or like him – in her life.  Just thinking about how focused the Doctor is whenever they’re together– how thorough, determined, and tenacious; the fierce look in his eyes, and the mesmerizing way his tongue pokes out the side of his mouth when he’s trying to work out the answer to a particularly difficult problem – makes her blush. 

Seems like just about everything to do with this man makes her blush.

She averts her eyes, hoping he doesn’t see the rising color on her cheeks.

Fortunately, if he does notice he keeps it to himself.  He leans backs in his chair before dismissing her compliment with a loud raspberry and a wave of his hand.

“Oh, Miss Tyler,” he says, his smile faltering a little.  “I’m all right as a teacher, I suppose.  But I’m nothing special.”

The ridiculous thing it’s clear from the look on his face that he believes it.  Rose just doesn’t know what to say. 

She changes the subject.  “Um.  Well, sir, if that’ll be all for today, then…?” 

Rose bites her lip, hoping for… well.  In truth she doesn’t know what she’s hoping for.  If he says he has nothing more for her to do today she supposes she’ll collect her things and start her weekend.  She’ll have two glorious days to herself to finally explore this great big city she’s dreamt about all her life. 

But if he has nothing more for her to do today that also means she won’t see him again until Monday.  The thought of not seeing the Doctor – of not being around his feverish energy – for two entire days floods her with a strange, unexpected disappointment she doesn’t want to think about.

He doesn’t leave her waiting long for an answer.

“Yes, that’ll be all for now, Miss Tyler,” he says.  An instant later he’s out of his chair, pacing his office in that mad way of his.  He turns his back to her and begins scribbling strange equations on his chalkboard.  “Have a good weekend.”

“Um, you too, sir,” she says.  “I’ll see you Monday?”

The Doctor nods but doesn’t turn to face her.  He makes a nonverbal noise of agreement, effectively dismissing her and letting her know this meeting is over.

Rose bites her lip again, rattled by his sudden change in demeanor.  Slowly, without taking her eyes off him, she backs out of his office.  She’s too captivated by the sight of him like this – the intensity of his focus, completely oblivious to his surroundings and completely engrossed in his work – to look away one moment before she has to.

She won’t let herself think about _that_ , either.  He’s her boss, he's a good decade her senior, and he’s got no interest in daft girls like her.  How could he possibly? 

Those are the things she should be thinking about instead.

* * *

 

As fascinating as Rose finds the Doctor, whenever she thinks back on their first conversation – the one where he promised they’d have fantastic adventures together – Rose has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.

The word _adventure_ clearly means something very different to him than it does to her. 

That’s not to say she regrets coming here.  She already knows she’s going to adore London.  Everything she’s seen suggests her new home is a vibrant place, full of life and brimming with vitality – even now, embroiled as it is in this horrible war.  It’s a cosmopolitan and forward-looking city, so completely unlike Leeds in just about every way imaginable it takes her breath away.

And her working environment is certainly pleasant enough.  More than pleasant, really.  There’s the Doctor of course, but her other co-workers are, with few exceptions, lovely people as well.  To the person, they treat her with a kind of respect she’s never been shown before.  Like they either don’t notice or don’t care that she’s just an uneducated girl from up north.  

The work itself, on the other hand…   

The work itself is a different story.  _Adventure_ is not a word she would ever use to describe what she does.  _Tedium_ is much more apt.

Granted, what they do in this office is vitally important for both England and the war effort.  That certainly helps.  Some days, her assistance plays a direct role in minimizing Allied casualties.  Rose will never forget the afternoon her work helped Captain Harkness reroute a squad of Allied airmen just in the nick of time, effectively saving a dozen British men from certain death.  Everyone in the office clapped and cheered for her when they’d gotten the news – and none so loudly and enthusiastically as the Doctor.

That said, Rose already knows this is not a job she’ll be able to do for years on end.

She’ll go mad first. 

The crux of the problem is her routine never changes.  In fact, it’s been the same thing, day after day, for five consecutive days.  And things don’t look about to change anytime soon.

When Rose arrives in the morning at half-six she first visits the Doctor’s, a slightly mad girl who likes to match her lipstick to the color of her shoes.  Without even a good morning, each day Claire hands Rose a large stack of encrypted telegrams that were intercepted overnight.  After handing them over she dismisses Rose with a curt nod and promptly goes back to filing her nails.

Rose then takes the papers to her own desk.  She picks up the decoding key the Doctor will have placed on her desk at god only knows what hour of the morning and puts it on top of the stack of telegrams with a sigh.

Needing bolstering, Rose will then walk to the kitchenette for a cup of strong black tea.  She’s never been able to make a cup as good as her mum can but at times like these she can’t be too picky.

Once she has her cup in hand, Rose steels herself for the rest of her morning, during which she’ll use the decoding key to arrange the stack of gibberish telegrams into an order that will make sense to the Doctor and the other men who work here.  

“How do you come up with it?”  Rose asked him her first day.  “The key I’ll use to sort these telegrams, I mean.”  The Doctor had been sitting very close to her in his office by then, less than two inches of charged space all that separated them.  He held a decoding key – the first one Rose had ever seen – in his hands, his touch on the single sheet of paper so reverent Rose half-expected him to tell her it was actually the Holy Bible. 

“Ah!” he exclaimed.  He jumped from his chair with so much enthusiasm Rose wondered if he’d been waiting for her to ask this question all along.  “Well, Miss Tyler… you see, the prototype for this key was, in fact, initially developed by people in a very different office located about ten miles from here about a year ago.  Brilliant people, that lot.  They’d asked me to be part of it when it started up but I wasn’t… that is to say, um, I couldn’t…”  He trailed off without finishing his thought, color beginning to rise on his cheeks.

“You couldn’t what?”

The Doctor didn’t answer her.  Merely shook his head.  Cleared his throat.  “About a year ago that office had a major breakthrough,” he told her.  “With it they were able to build a new kind of computing machine.  Of course, the machine couldn’t totally solve the problem of encrypted messages, what with how often the Nazis change their techniques.  Either way, that mad computer of theirs helped tremendously.  Among other things, it’s helped us develop the tools we need for our own decryption efforts.  This process now goes at least ten times faster than it might have done otherwise.”

The process is now faster than it might have been otherwise?  Rose can’t even imagine. 

Although she finds the Doctor’s enthusiasm for what they do enthralling, she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt she’ll never share it. 

* * *

 

After leaving the Doctor’s office, Rose makes her way back to her desk to collect her things for the day.  When she gets there Donna comes up beside her and grins.

“Hey, Donna,” she says, picking up her bag.

“Hey yourself.”  Donna bumps Rose’s shoulder with her own.  “Well, looks like you survived your first week.  Let’s go to the Dubonnet Club later to celebrate.”

Rose has never been to the Dubonnet Club, but the girls in the office talk about it all the time.  Based on what she’s heard she suspects it’s not actually a proper club, but rather a normal pub with a posh-sounding name.  It’s popular with a lot of the military men who work here – making it popular, in turn, with the girls, too.    

Rose is admittedly intrigued by the place.  But she’s exhausted.  A full week of coming to work before dawn is catching up to her.

She just isn’t certain tonight’s the right night to go out with her new mates.

“Oh, I dunno, Donna,” she says.

“Come on,” Donna says.  “It’ll be a laugh.  Lots of cute military blokes go there to blow off steam.  Sometimes they even buy everyone a round of drinks.”  She winks at her salaciously.  “ _Some_ of them even dance.”

Rose gulps.  “Dancing?”  It’s been years since she danced with a bloke.  And that had only been with Mickey, who hardly counts.  The thought of being in a smoky pub with a bloke she’s only just met, his hand upon her waist and her hand resting on his shoulder, makes her palms sweat.

Donna doesn’t seem to notice Rose’s unease.  “Yep.  Dancing,” she confirms.  “Captain Harkness may be an American but he’s incredible dancer.”  She winks again.  “And he’ll be _therrrre toniiiight_ ,” she adds in a singsong.

“Oh.”  Rose doesn’t know what else to say to that.  She strongly suspects her flatmate fancies the American but she personally has no interest in dancing with Captain Harkness.

Rose does her best to make excuses on their bus ride home.  But Donna is relentless.  By the time they’re back at the Williams’ boarding house Rose finds herself reluctantly agreeing to go along with Donna’s plans just so she’ll leave her alone.

“What about Mrs. Williams’ curfew?” Rose asks quietly as they climb the stairs to their room.  One last attempt at getting out of this.  “Aren’t we supposed to be home by nine?”  Mrs. Williams’ rules may be strict, but that was one of the very few details about this whole arrangement her mum actually approved of. 

Donna just rolls her eyes.

“Don’t worry about Mrs. Williams,” she says, waving her hand dismissively.  “She goes to bed at half-eight most nights.  She won’t even know we’re gone.” 

Rose isn’t so certain that’s true.  Mr. Williams comes home at odd hours, and although he tries to be quiet she’s heard his heavy tread on the stairs in the middle of the night more than once.  The last time it happened Mrs. Williams was certainly awake enough to shout at him to keep it down. 

Rose hopes that even if Mrs. Williams does catch them out late, calling her mum to tattle on her won’t be high on her list of things to do this weekend.  The repercussions for violating one of the conduct rules have never been thoroughly explained to her.  She’s never felt the need to ask for clarification.

* * *

 

It doesn’t take either of them long to decide what to wear. 

Clearly they can’t wear the uniforms they wear to work every day.  They might be Army girls but what’s the point in going out to a pub if they can’t leave all that behind for a few hours?

Rose really only has one thing to wear that’s suitable: a knee-length blue dress with subtle shoulder pads and silver buttons all the way down the front.  She made it herself last year from a kit and she’s quite proud of how she looks in it. 

As Donna dresses, telling Rose all about the fit man she met at the Dubonnet Club two weeks ago, Rose nods and listens intently, sliding on a pair of low brown heels.

“Ready?” Donna asks her after eventually.  She’s looking at her own reflection in the little mirror, adjusting the little hat perched precariously on her head.

Rose reaches around her neck so she can do up the clasp to a faux-pearl necklace her granddad gave her when she was little.

“Almost ready,” Rose says.  “How does my hair look?”

Donna turns away from the mirror and looks her over.  “You look good,” she says.  She tilts her head to the left and then to the right, appraising her.  Finally she clucks her tongue and nods with approval.

Rose smiles at her. “Shall we go, then?”  In spite of her earlier protests, and much to her surprise, Rose’s isn’t tired anymore.  Just the opposite, in fact.  She’s giddy and a little light-headed, her stomach in knots with anticipation.

“Yes,” Donna says, grinning back.  “Let’s paint the town.”

* * *

 

Given how popular the Dubonnet Club is – and given that it’s in London, not Leeds – Rose had assumed it would be a rather nice place.  Certainly there’d be none of the cigarette ash or dirty rings left behind by customers’ beer glasses that you’d find in Leore’s, that old pub she used to visit with Shareen when they were bored.

But the moment she and Donna open the Dubonnet Club’s heavy wooden door and walk inside Rose realizes she’d gotten it all wrong.  The Dubonnet Club is dank, dark, and crowded with loud, noisy drunks.  The walls are lined with dartboards in various stages of use and disrepair.  The cigarette smoke from the pub’s many patrons hangs so chokingly thick in the air it hurts her throat and stings her eyes.

“This is it, then?” Rose asks.  She coughs into her hand, trying, and failing, to ignore the awful taste left in her mouth just from breathing.

“Yep!  The one and only Dubonnet Club,” Donna confirms, scanning the crowd.  “Ah!  There’s Jack and Ianto.” 

Donna nods her head in their direction.  Rose follows her gaze to where Captain Harkness and Ianto sit with their heads close together at a small table in the back.  They’re in civilian dress tonight, just like she and Donna are, each of them in khaki pants and bright collared shirts. 

They look so different out of uniform Rose hardly recognizes them.

She and Donna begin picking their way through the crowd towards their coworkers.  This is no easy task given how many people are packed into the noisy, crowded room.  Rose bumps into drunk airmen in their flight suits and the Army girls, still in uniform, who laugh at their jokes, lit cigarettes dangling from fingers and rosy lips.  She nearly trips over another man’s outstretched legs before Donna, seeing disaster about to happen, tugs her out of the way at the very last moment.

Captain Harkness looks up from his pint and sees them, finally, when they’re still about fifteen feet away from his table.  He catches Donna’s eye and smirks, banging the table with his fist in mock impatience.

“Hurry up, woman!” he shouts in his broad, jovial American accent, so loudly he can be heard easily over the din of the room.  His words are a little slurred; Rose can’t help but wonder how much he’s already had to drink.  “We’ve been waiting for our next round of drinks for thirty minutes!”

When Donna gets there she picks up Captain Harkness’ half-full pint glass and slams it, hard, back down on the table.  Most of its contents slosh out of the glass and onto his shirt, making him scowl and Ianto laugh.

“Oi!” Donna shouts, jabbing a finger at the Captain.  “I’m not your barmaid, you git.”

“Aw, I’m sorry,” Captain Harkness says flirtatiously.  He grabs Donna by the shoulders and pulls her down so he can plant a wet, sloppy kiss on her cheek.

“Ugh!” she groans.  But she’s grinning, and Rose can tell she’s only pretending to be cross with him.  Donna pulls away and swats him playfully on the arm before moving to sit on his lap a moment later.  “You’re mental,” she tells him, jabbing a finger at his chest.  “You know that?”

“Aye, _captain_ ,” he says.  He raises a hand to his forehead and gives her a mock salute, making Donna throw her head back with laughter.

“Hi, Rosie,” he says a moment later, smiling at her.  A paragon of manners and decorum in the office, Captain Harkness apparently sees no need to keep to formalities here at the Dubonnet Club.  “It’s good to see you too.”

She smiles back at him.  “You too, Captain Harkness.” 

“After hours it’s just Jack,” he corrects her, winking.

“Jack,” Rose repeats.

“Hey, Rose,” Donna says, looking over at her flatmate.  “I hate to do this, but do you have any money?  I’ll pay you back Tuesday, I swear.  I’m out of pocket money until then.”

“Um.  Sure,” Rose says.  She rummages through her bag for a long moment, digging through tissues and bus tickets for the small grey billfold she keeps pinned to a hidden inside pocket.  When she doesn’t find it she scowls, confused, before suddenly remembering she shoved it in her desk drawer after buying a bag of crisps at lunchtime. 

“What’s wrong?” Donna says, noticing Rose’s frown.

“I’m an idiot,” Rose says.  “Left my bloody wallet at the office.”  She stands up from her chair.  “I need to go get it.”

“Oh, hey,” Jack says, tugging on her arm.  “It’s all right.  We’ve got tonight covered.”

But Rose shakes her head.  “It’s fine, Captain Har – I mean, Jack,” she says, quickly correcting herself.  “The office is right around the corner, yeah?  I’ll just swing by and get it.  I won’t be a moment.”  She smiles at him.  “Not really safe to leave my wallet there overnight, is it?  My mum would murder me if she knew.”

“You sure?” Donna asks.  “Want us to come with you?”

Rose shakes her head again.  “No, I’ll be fine.”  In truth, she’d prefer to be alone for a few minutes to clear her head and get some much needed fresh air into her lungs.  And Donna is obviously enjoying herself very much on Captain Harkness’ lap.

“Be careful,” Jack says warningly.  “If you’re not back in thirty minutes we’ll come after you.”

She smiles at him.  “I’ll be back in twenty,” Rose assures him.

* * *

 

Walking briskly, it takes Rose less than ten minutes to get back to the office.  There’s no one in front of the building to let her in so she quietly unlocks the door herself. 

The clock hanging on the far wall of her workspace tells her it’s nearly eight o’clock.  Even at this late hour there’s still there’s a skeleton crew here.  Just enough people to make certain nothing goes awry overnight. 

Enemy communications are intercepted at all hours, after all.  There’s need for both a civilian and a military presence here around the clock.  She knows that sooner or later she’ll be assigned to an overnight shift herself.  Probably sooner, if Donna’s own erratic schedule is any guide.

Before Rose makes it to her desk she notices, to her surprise, that the light in the Doctor’s office is still on.  She knows for a fact he was here before five this morning.  What could be possibly so urgent that the Doctor would still be here more than fifteen hours later?  Rose has heard stories about how the man works inhuman hours, sometimes going days without a break if he’s on the verge of a breakthrough. 

Until now, though, she hadn’t seen hard evidence of it for herself.

The Doctor hasn’t mentioned the team who invented the code-breaking computer since that one conversation her first day here.  All the same, she can’t help but shake the feeling that his not having been a part of it bothers him.  All along she’s just assumed his passion for his work came from some enigmatic source within him.  But is it possible some of his drive comes from something else?  Some sort of need to prove himself? 

Either way, it’s not right, the way he pushes himself.  No matter how brilliant or driven he might be.  He’ll make himself sick.

Pocketing her key Rose walks to the Doctor’s office.  Quietly, so she doesn’t disturb anyone.  She finds his door slightly ajar, and she makes a fist with her hand, preparing to knock on the doorframe to announce her presence.

Just before her hand makes contact with the wood, however, she’s stopped by a muffled but unmistakable sob coming from inside.

Her heart in her throat, and knowing she shouldn’t pry but unable to help herself, Rose cranes her neck a little so she can see inside.

She sees the Doctor, seated at his desk, his head buried in his hands.  His coat and tie are draped inelegantly over the back of his chair.  His desk is even more of a disaster than normal, every square inch of it covered with books, scattered papers, and the remains of what looks to have been a very meager dinner of fish and chips.

Oblivious to her presence he gives a long, shuddering sigh – and then his shoulders begin to shake with silent sobs.

Before she can stop herself Rose eases open the door just enough for her to step inside, propriety be damned.  It doesn’t matter if her being here right now is inappropriate.  She can’t just turn around and leave him alone when he’s like this. 

“Jenny,” he mumbles to nobody, in between sobs, his hands still covering his face.  Rose’s heart clenches painfully at the agony in his voice.  “Jenny, I’m so sorry.”


	4. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somehow this has become a bit of a hurt/comfort fic. No one is more surprised by this development than I am. Not to worry, though. Everything will end happily, I promise.

Rose stands rooted to the spot in the Doctor’s office, struck mute by the sight of him sitting there behind his desk and sobbing quietly into his hands.

She isn’t used to seeing grown men cry.  Not like this.  Until now the Doctor had always seemed… infallible.  More a force of nature to be reckoned with – like a booming thunderclap that can shake a house to its foundations, or a swift-running river – than a flesh-and-blood man. 

Seeing him broken and wounded cuts her to the quick.   

What could possibly have happened to make him break down like this?  Rose can’t begin to imagine.  And who is Jenny?  Is that his wife?  He’s never mentioned a wife before, and she’s never seen the Doctor with a ring. 

Then again, the Doctor never says anything about his personal life.  And who knows what customs they have in London.   Maybe men here don’t wear wedding rings. 

As if the Doctor can hear the direction of her thoughts he startles, suddenly, though she’s made no sound.  He looks up from behind his hands and gapes at her.  He clearly wasn’t expecting to see her here.  Rose notices that the Doctor’s rich brown eyes, usually so bright, almost feverish with excitement, are bloodshot and rimmed with red.  The agony written all over his face tears at her heart.

It occurs to her, too late, that she had no real plan when she barged into his office.  She saw him crying and she panicked, acting on pure instinct, wanting only to help.  As he looks at her now, openly staring and saying nothing, she realizes with sudden clarity that she made a terrible mistake.  She shouldn’t have intruded on what he’d obviously intended to be a private moment.

And now she’s upset him further by interrupting him, creating a horribly awkward situation in the process. 

She keeps waiting for the Doctor to say something, _anything_ , to break the silence.  But he stays quiet.  He just continues staring at her, like he can’t quite believe she’s there, his bottom lip jutting out in a way that would be distracting in different circumstances.    

It’s not like him to say nothing, which only makes Rose feel even worse about what she’s done.  She gives up waiting for him to say something.  She needs to apologize.

“Doctor, I’m – I’m sorry,” she says.  The words trip over each other in a jumble in their haste to leave her mouth.  “I shouldn’t have… shouldn’t have come in here.  I know that.  But you were crying, Doctor, and calling out… and I know you’ve been here since five in the morning, don’t say you haven’t.  And I just…”  She trails off, then swallows.  “I was just worried, is all. I came into the building to fetch something I’d forgotten earlier, and I saw your light was on, I saw you crying, and… and I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

It’s the most Rose has ever said to him at one time.  His enthusiastic babble normally takes up every inch of available space, leaving little room for words of her own.

She fidgets nervously with her earring as she waits for the Doctor to say something in response.  At length, he gives her a watery smile that does nothing to ease her conscience.

“Thank you, Miss Tyler,” he says at last.  His voice is hoarse, possibly from his crying jag.  It catches on the last syllable of her name.  He clears his throat before continuing.  “It was very thoughtful of you to check on me.  I appreciate it.  That said, I assure you that I’m all right.”   His smile grows into a facsimile of the dazzling grin he gives her on a regular basis.  But it doesn’t reach his eyes, and his bottom lip has started trembling. 

Rose narrows her eyes at him suspiciously.  His false words don’t fool her.

“I don’t think you are fine, Doctor,” she says.  To her relief, he doesn’t throw her out of his office for her cheek.  She takes that as a good sign.  She gathers her courage and tentatively inches closer to his desk.  “I mean – blimey, Doctor.  You were _crying_.  Sobbing.  Something’s obviously wrong, yeah?”

The Doctor closes his eyes and sighs.

“Miss Tyler,” he begins, then trails off.  His tone of voice is a warning, but his physical demeanor – from the slump of his broad shoulders to the weary tilt of his head – is rife with a palpable agony.  It draws her irresistibly to him like a moth to a flame. 

She decides, then and there, that she won’t be deterred from offering him comfort tonight.  Not even by him. 

She shakes her head, determined. 

“You need fresh air, Doctor,” she hears herself say, the words out of her mouth and hanging in the empty space between them almost before she’s realized what she’s said.  But as she looks at him – _really_ looks at him – she realizes it’s true.  His handsome face is pinched and drawn, his skin almost sickly pale under the bright overhead fluorescent lighting.  From the thickness of the stubble on his jaw Rose estimates he hasn’t shaved in several days.  And his hair – wild and unruly under the best of circumstances – is positively riotous, sticking up in all directions more than Rose would have thought the laws of gravity would allow.

With a lump in her throat, Rose wonders just how long he’d been in here, crying and tearing at his hair, before she arrived.       

But the Doctor is obstinate.  “I do _not_ need fresh air,” he insists.  The petulant tone of his voice reminds Rose so much of the young children she used to nanny during summer holidays she has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling indulgently at him.

“Yes,” she says.  “I think you do.”

“Oh, Miss Tyler.”  He shakes his head at her.  His false smile grows broader.  “I never need fresh air.  Not me!  I much prefer the stale, _not_ -fresh air the British Army has perfected right here in this lovely old, drafty old building.”  The Doctor sniffs the air theatrically and looks around as though admiring the scenery on a pretty day.  “It’s refreshing, stale air.  Invigorating, really.  I quite like it.  It suits me.”

Rose just rolls her eyes.  She was a good nanny.  She knows deflection and childish stalling tactics when she sees them.

Suddenly, she knows what she has to do.

Before she can talk herself out of it Rose closes the remaining distance between them in three strides.  When she reaches him, she grabs his shoulders.   The Doctor freezes at her touch, his whole body going rigid under her hands.  She’s crossing lines left and right tonight, she knows that, but it’s too late to turn back now.

“Come on, then.  Up you go,” she says as she hauls him up out of his chair.  He’s surprisingly heavy for such a skinny bloke but she manages the job well enough.  He yelps loudly once he’s on his feet, tottering a little before finding his balance. 

“Miss Tyler,” he says again, putting out a hand against the edge of his desk to steady himself.   “I _assure_ you, there is nothing at all the matter with me that a nice cup of tea won’t fix.”  His tone is steady, with a forced calm that she recognizes is his final attempt at getting her to drop it.  To go back home.  To leave him be.

But his eyes tell a different story.  His pupils are blown wide with grief.  He looks imploringly at her, as though desperate for her understand that, in fact, he does need her help, no matter the words coming out of his mouth. 

Or perhaps it’s just her wishful thinking.  Either way, she’s made up her mind.

“Right then,” she says.  She puts her hands resolutely on her hips.  “If a cup of tea will fix you up, a cup of tea it is.  I know just the place.”  She smiles at him, the tip of her tongue touching the corner of her mouth.  “It’ll be my treat.”

* * *

 

After a brisk ten minute walk they arrive at Joe’s, an American-style diner that’s open all night.  Rose has never been here, but it’s popular among the officers for its late hours and strong coffee.

She grabs the door by its handle and pulls it open.  The bells hanging up in the doorway jingle loudly, announcing their arrival. 

“Here we are,” she says, trying to sound cheerful. 

“Miss Tyler,” the Doctor says, warningly.  He’d reluctantly allowed her to frog-march him out of their office building.  But the minute they were outside he started running his gob again, repeatedly assuring her that he was _fine_ and that no fresh air or black tea or frog-marching were remotely necessary.

She ignores him.  “Doctor, you’re having a bloody cup of tea whether you like it or not.”

Without another word Rose enters the restaurant and lets the door close behind her.  To her relief, it reopens a moment later, the jangling door chimes and the Doctor’s loud put-upon sigh telling her he’s right behind her.

Looking around, Rose sees that Joe’s is half-empty. She’s not surprised.  This place is well-liked for its hours, not its food, which according to Donna is terrible.  She imagines this place must be busiest during the overnight hours, when a person in search of a hot cuppa is seriously limited on options. 

After a short wait a bored-looking young waitress with her blonde hair tied back in a loose ponytail seats them at a table for two in the back. 

“What can I get you?” she asks.  She pulls a small notepad from the front pocket of her apron and extracts a pencil from behind her ear.

Five minutes later she sets down two identical ceramic mugs full of hot tea in front of them. 

“Thank you,” Rose says.  She looks down at her mug, watching the steam rise up from it in long spirals.  She carefully plucks one small sugar cube from the chipped bowl in the center of the table and drops it into the dark amber liquid. 

As much as she would love to fill the awkward silence that’s fallen between them with words, after all the lines she’s crossed tonight the Doctor needs to be the one to speak first.  Not her.  She stirs her tea with a long-handled spoon as she waits for him, watching the sugar cube dissolve as it sinks to the bottom of her cup.

At length, he speaks.

“Miss Tyler,” he begins.  He doesn’t sound exasperated with her anymore.  He just sounds tired.  “I just… I don’t know what to say.”

On instinct, she reaches across the table with her right hand and wiggles her fingers a little.  A wordless invitation for him to take it.  He’s slow to respond but he eventually does, giving a long, shuddering sigh before weaving his fingers through hers.  His hand is surprisingly warm given how chilly the diner is. The feel of his calloused palm pressed up against hers is at once reassuring and strangely exciting.

He closes his eyes and takes another deep breath.

“Doctor,” she says.  Gives his hand what she hopes is a reassuring squeeze.  To her surprise, he gives an answering squeeze in return.  “Maybe just…. I dunno.  Maybe you can just start at the beginning?”

She chances a glance at him, sitting across from her with his free hand clutching at his mug of tea.  He opens his eyes but doesn’t return her gaze, choosing instead to stare at an invisible spot of nothing on the wall behind her.    

When still he says nothing Rose tries again.  “Okay, you don’t have to tell me what it is.  But just, please… is there anything I can do?”

He shakes his head.

“There’s nothing you can do,” he says, his voice catching on the last word.  “Not unless you can turn back time.”

She shakes her head.  “Sorry,” she says.  “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

He shrugs and smiles a little.  This time, it reaches his eyes.  “Didn’t think so,” he says, not unkindly.  “But that’s all right, Miss Tyler.  If it were possible for anyone to travel back in time I think I’d have managed it by now just through sheer force of will.”

She takes a deep breath and steadies her nerves.  “What happened, Doctor?  Don’t you think talking about it would make you feel better?”

He says nothing more for a long moment.  Simply squares his shoulders and looks at her as though seeing her for the very first time.

Just when Rose decides, finally, that he was right all along, that this was a mistake – that he isn’t going to tell her anything, that she’s prying into matters that don’t concern her; that she should just apologize to him and go home – he starts talking.

“The girl whose name you heard me say.  Jenny.”  His voice is so low Rose has to strain to hear him above the low din of the restaurant.  His eyes dart from the spot on the wall to his mug of tea and then back again.  “She was… she was my daughter.”

Rose flinches a little at his use of the past tense.  “She… _was_ your daughter?” she asks quietly.

“Yes,” the Doctor confirms.  “She was.  Jenny was seven years old when she… when she died.”   He runs the hand that’s not holding Rose’s through his wrecked hair.  “Her mother – Margaret; my wife Margaret – was twenty-nine at the time.”  He swallows thickly.  “They died together at our home.  In a fire.  It happened two years ago tonight.”

Rose heart clenches painfully in her chest at the agony she hears in his voice.  The Doctor trails off, and Rose thinks that’s all he intends to say.  But he continues a beat later, the words now coming out in such a torrent it quickly becomes difficult for Rose to distinguish one word from the next. 

“I was working late, of course.  I was always working late back then.  There was a grant due the following Tuesday morning.  I was the department head so it was my job to make sure all the _i_ ’s were dotted and _t_ ’s were crossed, so to speak, before the application went in.”  He gave a humorless laugh.  “Of course, my colleagues and my graduate students were perfectly capable of handling the proofreading on their own.  I _could_ have left at my regular dinner hour if I hadn’t been so obstinate and unwilling to delegate control over the project to anyone.”

He looks down at his tea. 

“Margaret had phoned me at half-five, asking when I’d be home.  She said she was preparing something special prepared for dinner.  I told her I had to work late that night, there was no way I’d be able to join them before Jenny needed to go to bed.  I promised her I’d make it up to her at the week-end.” 

The Doctor closes his eyes again, but not before Rose sees them go glassy with new, unshed tears. 

He clears his throat before continuing.  “About ten minutes after we got off the phone a grease fire started in the kitchen.  I didn’t know anything about it until the police called me two hours later.  By that time, it was too late.  The fire had gutted everything.”

Rose has to swallow the lump that’s formed in her throat.  “Oh, Doctor.”

The Doctor nods.  “They found… well.  When it was over, they found their bodies huddled together in the back bedroom.”

As he tells the story, the Doctor’s grip on Rose’s hand grows progressively tighter, as though it’s become the only thing tethering him to reality.  Her heart heavy, and at a total loss for how to comfort him in the face of such crippling sorrow, Rose begins to trace invisible patterns over the back of his hand with her thumb, drawing circles and curlicues and nonsense designs over and over again, hoping that, somehow, her touch might help.

After a very long pause the Doctor looks directly at Rose for the first time since they arrived at the diner. 

“It’s why I came here,” he explains, his voice toneless.  “It’s why I joined the Army. Cambridge is full of ghosts for me now.  Everywhere I looked, I saw them.  Everything I saw was just another reminder that their deaths were my fault.”

Rose can’t believe what she’s hearing.  “What happened was terrible, Doctor.  More than terrible.  And I am so, so sorry.  But it wasn’t your fault.  It was an accident.  You can’t blame yourself.”

“Can’t I?” he asks, challenging her.  He raises an eyebrow.  “If I hadn’t been at the office so bloody late I would have been there with them.  I could have stopped it.  Protected them.  I could have – ”

The Doctor breaks off again, more tears threatening to overtake him.

She strokes the back of his hand again with her thumb.  He clenches his jaw, creating a dimple in his cheek, and gives her hand another squeeze in wordless thanks. 

“Doctor,” she says, very quietly.  “You are the most brilliant man I have ever met.  Sometimes I don’t think there’s anything you can’t do if you put your mind to it.”  She shakes her head.  “But this?  This is different.  It was a horrible, terrible accident, but not your fault.  Not your fault at all.”  She strokes the back of his hand again.  “If you’d have been there you’d probably have died too.”

He shakes his head again.

“I suppose it doesn’t really matter,” he says, quietly.  “I want you to know, Miss Tyler – earlier, when I said I was all right, that was mostly true.”  He picks up his mug of tea, takes a long swallow, and sets it back down.  “Most of the time I _am_ all right.  When I lose myself in my work, when I think about the real difference our office is making in the war – I’m fine.  Truly.  I can lose myself and forget, for a time.”  He gives her another sad smile.  “But the anniversaries are always hard.”

“Of course they are,” she says.  Her heart is breaking for him.  For this man she’s only just met.  She can’t even imagine the torment he lives with every day.

He gives a small laugh.  Or tries to; his tears are flowing freely again, and it comes out sounding more like a sob.  “This is the most I’ve talked about them since their funeral, Miss Tyler.” 

Rose doesn’t know what to say in response to that.  He looks at her again and wipes at his eyes with the back of his sleeve.

“Call me Rose,” she tells him.

* * *

 

Rose doesn’t make it back to the Williams’ boarding house until after eleven. 

Her flatmate is there, waiting for her with the lights on when she enters the room.  Donna is still fully dressed from her night out and perched anxiously on the edge of her bed, her arms folded tightly across her chest. 

At the sight of her Donna’s jaw drops open and her eyes go round as saucers.

“Where in the bloody hell were you?” she demands.

Rose sets her bag down by the door and closes it softly.

“I went back to the pub to find you,” she explains, sheepishly.  “Just like I said I would.  But by then, you’d all gone.”

Donna stands up indignantly and marches across the room.  She stops just a few inches from Rose and puts her hands on her hips.

Rose can see in an instant that she’s absolutely furious.

“That’s because when you weren’t back in thirty minutes like you promised we went looking for you,” she says.  “We went to the office, but you weren’t there.  Then we went back to the pub just in case you’d circled back while we were gone, but the doorman said he hadn’t seen you since you’d left at eight.”

“Oh.”

Donna scoffs, rolling her eyes.  “ _Oh_ , she says.  Bloody hell, Rose, we even rung the police!” 

Rose’s stomach sinks.  “Oh, no.  You didn’t.”

“We did.  You’d been gone for two hours by then.  I don’t know what goes on in Leeds, but London streets are not exactly the safest places for a woman to walk alone late at night.  I was terrified something awful had happened to you, you numbskull!”

Rose buries her face in her hands.  “Donna, I’m so sorry.  Really I am.  I just… I got sidetracked, is all.  I couldn’t get away any earlier than I did.”

Donna tilts her head to one side, considering her.  “You couldn’t get away any earlier?  From where?”

Rose tells Donna everything.  Well.  Almost everything.  She explains that she went to the office to get her wallet just like she’d said, but that while she was there she’d walked in on Captain Smith having a breakdown in his office.  She told her she couldn’t leave him alone in that condition, and that they’d had a cup of tea together at Joe’s until he felt a little better.

She doesn’t tell Donna the source of the Doctor’s distress.  It’s his story, to tell or not, as he sees fit.  Not hers.  Fortunately, Donna seems to sense that as well and doesn’t pry.  She also doesn’t chastise her for spending several hours alone with her direct supervisor, for which she is immensely grateful.

In fact, after Rose is finished, Donna doesn’t say anything at all for a very long moment, though her stance makes it clear that Rose's story has mollified her a little.  Donna shakes her head and walks towards her bureau to pull out her nightdress.

“Well, I suppose it was good you were there for him tonight,” Donna admits.  “Good for him, I mean.  It was rubbish for us.  Wrecked our whole evening.”

Rose swallows.  “I’m really sorry, Donna.  I promise – it’ll never happen again.”

Donna smirks at her.  “You’re bloody right it won’t happen again.  If you ever leave me alone like that again with Captain “Mr. Hands” Harkness and Ianto Jones I swear to God I’ll blacken your eye.”

Rose laughs along with her roommate and readies herself for bed.

* * *

 

Despite her earlier indignation Donna’s breathing evens out in peaceful slumber less than five minutes after they turn out the lights.

But for Rose, sleep remains elusive.

Every time she closes her eyes, all she can see is the Doctor.  The profound sorrow reflected in his eyes. His wild hair. His sad, beautiful smile.


End file.
